


A Buzzing in My Ears

by starkadder



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Semi-Relationship, F/F, Flashbacks, Loneliness, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkadder/pseuds/starkadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Dean's possession creeping over her and her world fading around her, Perry struggles to keep hold of her memories of Danny and the relationship they shared in between the big events at Silas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Buzzing in My Ears

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken slight artistic licence with the (implied) course of how possessed Perry was at different stages in Season Two. Similarly, I'm assuming a couple of weeks between Episodes 35 and 36 of Season One. Scenes in Season One will, regrettably, include in-character referring to LaFontaine by the wrong pronouns because they haven't had the talk yet.

There's a buzzing in my ears, Danny. It's getting worse. When we came back to Silas it would come and go, but now I can't get away from it whatever I do. I have fuzzy patches shuddering and rippling before my eyes. Sometimes things drop out of sight or I get tunnel vision. Other times I don't remember where I've been or what I've been doing. And then there are the dreams – but I don't want to tell you about them. I don't want to tell anyone about my dreams, not even my reflection.

For some reason I can't talk to people about what's happening to me. I don't know why but it gets worse when I try to tell anyone and my hands start shaking. And then there's this urge somewhere in the back of my head that says - don't tell anyone. Don't let them know. But I don't know what it is they aren't supposed to know. What it is _I'm_ not supposed to know.

You look so beautiful out there, Danny. You're far off over the lawn, but I keep my eyes fixed on you all the same: pale face, flaming hair. The morning sun lights you up like you're made of fire. The students could hardly have chosen a better banner to follow. I know they're all scared but they have someone to trust in – and it's worth it, for the right person.

I'm glad I can remember us. I seem to have remembered so little since we came back, but everything that happened with you stands out with complete clarity. The buzzing went away when we were together and I saw all the way to the edges of my world.

Do you remember the first time I touched you? Your hair made fine red lines across my palms and it was so soft on them. I remember being amazed at how soft it was, it didn't seem right that all your toughness and strength should conceal it. And you teased the coils of mine in the morning when you thought I was sleeping – or perhaps you knew I was awake and only pretending, but you didn't want to disturb our little game.

We should have left together, don't you think? We should have done what we joked about doing, just packed our bags and gone. Before the Anglerfish started rising, before we got separated in the confusion, before Carmilla came back.

* * *

You didn't pick up your book, that first day. I sat down next to you on the bench overlooking the south lawn and we said the desultory things to each other that were necessary. You asked after Laura and I told you she was managing and that we were taking care of her. I was giving her plenty of soup. Then you asked after me, and I showed you how the bruises on my left arm were fading. You told me you'd received the honorary trident promised by Kirsch and donated it to the English department on account of an obscure rule of the Summer Society banning tridents in the society house. 

And then we'd run out of all the conversation available to two people who hardly knew each other and we lapsed into silence. But you didn't move to pick up the book in your lap – so I didn't take out the one in my bag. 

And we sat there.

“It feels strange,” I said eventually. “Afterwards, I mean.” In front of us a scrum of Zetas played some approximation to a ball game. There didn't seem to be any rules. Typical Silas.

“We are displaced persons,” you said, and that made me look at you. You'd kept pace with my own thoughts.

“Yes.” Dis-placed. Un-placed. Wrongly-placed. Though the whole of this university was the wrong place for me, I think.

“First time I assumed I was going to die,” you continued. “Not _thought I might_. Actually _assumed I would_.” 

I didn't want to hear about the times you nearly died. “A bit like having your dinner guests not turn up,” I tried to joke instead.

“I can see how you would find that a catastrophe equivalent to impending death.” I looked sharply at you, expecting mockery. But instead there was a weak grin, showing through the thin outer layer of sadness we both wore. 

I smiled back. “Could be worse. The guests could have turned up to find we'd run out of fish knives.” Suddenly a smirk pushed its way across your face.

“ _Phone for the fish knives, Perry_  
_As cook is a little unnerved;_  
_Laura has crumpled the serviettes_  
_And I must have things daintily served._ ”

You finished your recitation with a flourish and we burst out laughing.

“John Betjeman,” you admitted. “Not mine. And obviously it wasn't you two in the original.”

“What fun skills you must pick up as an English Lit. TA.”

A shrug. “A small compensation for marking several dozen essays advancing the revolutionary suggestion that Jane Austen was possibly doing some light social satire every now and again.” 

“I don't envy you.”

“You weren't tempted to do it yourself? TA?”

“Have you read an essay written in German by a non-native speaker? You get five page sentences followed by three paragraphs made of nothing but verbs.” You winced.

Silence fell again, but it felt easier this time. It occurred to me then that I hadn't really been thinking of you as a bookish person – which was silly. Of course you were, you taught English literature. But then every time I'd seen you before, you were in the middle of some kind of sport or fight - so I suppose I had you pigeonholed as a bit of a jock and not much else.

“How's things with you and your Susan?” you asked after a while, and I got a bit flustered trying to reply.

“Well, she, er. Or possibly _they_ , because she muttered something one- Actually, they're not _mine_ in that- Well, _mine_ , but not, like, couple-ish- oh.” I sighed. “Shall I start again?” 

“Sorry, have I jumped to a conclusion there?” you asked. “Kind of assumed you and the little scientist were dating.”

“We're not dating. We've just... been best friends forever. Though we do hold hands a fair amount, I suppose, so I can't blame you for assuming.” You grinned at that and nodded. “But Susan is having this... thing. Where I can't call her 'Susan'. It has to be LaFontaine, and I don't really understand.”

“Everyone calls you by your surname,” you pointed out.

“Yes, but that's because there was this other Lola at school, so we got called by our surnames to tell us apart. And then when I came here, almost every time I met someone I was with Su- _LaFontaine_ , so she introduced me to everyone as Perry. It stuck, except for the people I met without her around. There weren't many of those,” I admitted.

“Would you like to be called Lola?”

I shrugged. “I kind of like Perry now. Makes a bit of a break with pre-Silas life.”

“Hmm. I guess I do call Laura 'Hollis' quite a bit.” You thought for a while. “You know, if LaFontaine wants you to call her something different, it's a fair bet she's even more uncertain than you right now.”

“Yeah well, she's dealing with it by locking herself up with the haunted flashdrive, so I'm not getting much of a look-in at the moment.”

“Really?”

“Apparently J.P. is 'so much fun, Perr. You'd love him if you gave him a chance.'”

You shifted in your seat. “Kind of sounds like, ah, dating. At least I'd assume so if he weren't incorporeal.”

“I think that might actually be part of the attraction.” I sighed. “Don't want to think about what that implies more than necessary, if I'm honest.” You gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder and stood up.

“Well, I've got to go. Mel's called a meeting about starting up the safety patrols again now that the tension's died down. See you round, Perry.” You chucked your book into a little rucksack dragged out from under the bench and performed an offhand salute. I waved goodbye as you swivelled on your heel and jogged off across the campus.

* * *

We fell into a pattern in the following days. You would take a book and sit on the bench overlooking the South Lawn. I would wander by, casually, not making a beeline for you. But I would always sit next to you, and you always put the book away when I did. I think it seemed to you that since I had already witnessed the stuff that was causing you pain I was a safe person to confide in. Certainly I saw the same in you. Ordinarily of course I’d have gone to LaFontaine, but they were always in the library with JP. 

“Do you think… you and Laura? When the dust has settled?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. How could we go back to how we were before?”

“She liked you – she probably still does. It hurt her when the two of you argued.” I remembered the ten minutes or so that elapsed between the argument for which I left the room and the beginning of the great battle against mushrooms. Most of that was spent with Laura crying onto my shoulder while Carmillshovered around with uncharacteristic tact.

“Yeah. But we’d need to talk about stuff, you know? It’s not like what happened between us was some random misstep. She doesn’t like me wanting to look after her.” You bit your lip, holding back the words for as long as you could before you burst out. “But isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? The story’s supposed to go: you like someone, so you look after them and keep them safe. It’s not just: you like someone and then let them get themselves hurt. That’d be a stupid story.”

Over above us the afternoon sun peeked out from behind a cloud, and I watched how you legs were just long enough for your feet to stick into the sunlit patch of grass. 

“I know. But- well, you heard what Laura’s dad is like with safety. And you’ve got to remember, before she came here she’d probably never been in real, proper danger before. You and I know how dangerous Silas can be. She’s still in that first-year state where everything turns out all right in the end and anyone who gets in the way is just being paranoid. Or she was, before this place broke her like it does everyone-” I stopped suddenly, conscious that more bitterness had crept into my voice than I planned.

“Speaking from experience?” you asked, after gazing at me for slightly longer than was comfortable. I looked away, found myself automatically fiddling with my hem. 

“Kind of,” I admitted.

You didn’t ask. I wouldn’t have said anything if you just asked straight out. But instead you sat there, brow wrinkled, staring at me.

“I remember you in first year,” you said slowly. “In fresher’s week. You wore flowers in your hair and had all those hippy clothes.”

“I know. What was I thinking?” I rolled my eyes. The harem pants were probably the worst part.

“Hey, I’m the one who wore purple overalls!” you reminded me, and that made me smile - I’d quite forgotten about _them_. “No, I meant – you were all into witchy stuff. And, well, you seemed kind of naïve about the weird bits. Only then we had some classes together in the second semester, and you weren’t like that at all.”

“Yeah,” was all I could say.

You shifted closer, and had to look you in the face. “What happened, Perry?”

“I grew up.”

“You grew up fast then. Not the only one – God, I remember first off Mel was this nerdy little shrinking violet until suddenly- wait.” I said nothing and you kept staring at me, chewing the inside of your cheek. Something had occurred to you. “Mel calls you Lola. I heard her, down in the pit below the Lustig. You knew each other in first year.”

I nodded. Your pale grey eyes were hunting me down, I thought.

“You were friends?”

“No. No, we hardly knew each other.”

“But you met. Right?” I didn't reply, but you pressed. “Perry – what happened to you two?”

“I did something stupid. Something very, very stupid that nearly killed everyone I cared about. Mel was there. So was Carmilla. I... had to make a choice. Between all my illusions about the world being a good place, and the lives of my friends. Between what I'd wished for and what I had to lose. So I did it, I gave up everything I thought about myself. Goodbye to the old Perry.

“I didn't tell anyone. Not even Susan, who I did it all for. So in the end, that was that,” I concluded. “Which is why I think you’re right to want to protect Laura. Even if she doesn’t like it, having someone like you to look after her – she’s very lucky.”  
You reached out and laid a hand on my arm. 

“God, Perry. I didn't know.” You thought for a bit. “So is LaFontaine. She's lucky too, is what I mean. To have someone like you in her life.”  
After the silence had gone on a little too long we both made to leave, but then you stopped suddenly and turned around.

“Hey,” you said. “If you fancy moping in company rather than moping alone – well, I was planning to stare blankly at films tonight. If you wanted.”

I was already shaking my head in refusal before I realised - “Actually – yeah. That sounds... better. Thank you.”

I played with the wind chimes hung up by your ventilation grate while you busied around sorting out the beanbag and cushions. I felt obscurely that I was going behind people's backs - after all, you were more properly Laura's friend than mine. Did you feel the same about me? Was that why you had seemed just slightly nervous when you opened the door to me?

In the end, a Jane Austen adaptation sufficed to drive the memories of first year away, especially when punctuated by regular demands at the screen that Emma Woodhouse realise how her obsessive attempts to find a match for Harriet Smith are just a way of trying to displace and deal with her own attraction to the girl. 

When it was over and the two of us were half-comatose anyway, I just curled up on the beanbag and fell asleep. I was woken only briefly when you stirred from your own sleep on the cushion-covered floor to grab the blankets off the bed and throw them over us.

* * *

I woke up to find you somewhat closer than I thought I'd left you the previous night. For a while, since you were asleep, I enjoyed the warmth radiating off your body. To be so close to someone physically was not something I was used to, but there was an unpressured quality to you that morning. It felt nice.

Finally you stirred, opened your eyes and – unexpectedly – blushed furiously to find us so. That made me giggle: Danny Lawrence, fearless and strong, tall and bold - and so pretty when she gets flustered. You couldn't get up and into the shower quickly enough. 

You offered to walk back with me to my room. You were going to head to the gym anyway, you said. Might as well go the scenic route by the Lustig. The day was crisp and bright as we strolled through the campus, and now that I was getting used to your presence, I found my attention on the little ways you moved – the way you turn your right foot out when walking but not your left, the way you fold your thumb into your palm when gesticulating. 

There was already a gang of Zetas huddled round the ruined Lustig crater, come to play the sophisticated sport of throwing cherry bombs at broken pieces of masonry. Only when we got closer could we hear that something else was going on. They suddenly stopped the hooliganism and huddled together. Some of them were pointing, and then three scrambled down into the rocky mud. 

You broke into a jog to get closer, with me trying to keep up as best as I could.

“Hey! Hey, Danny!” Kirsch appeared from the middle of the throng. “Danny, you got to see this-” 

By the time I got to the crater's edge you were already throwing down your bag. There, pulled out of a collapsed gully in the crater, arms hanging by her side as two Zetas lifted her up, was Carmilla.

“Is she-” someone asked.

There was murmuring discussion. “No. No, she's dead!”

“She's a vampire!” you shouted, “she was already dead. Bring her up!”

It took heaving and complaining and swearing and in the end a human chain to steady those carrying Carmilla's body up the slippery walls of the crater, but in the end they laid her down on the grass. She lay there limply, dark hair matted and soaking. I pressed my hand to her freezing cold cheek. Nobody seemed to know what to do except you.

“I'm taking her to Laura.” You knelt down next to me and in the glance we shot at each other I could see something painful and resigned happening behind your eyes. Slowly, almost tenderly, you gathered the dead girl into your arms and rose.

“Let's go find Laura. If we can save her-”

“Can you manage?” I hovered around you.

“I work out. Come on, you can do the easy bit – I'll keep up with you.” We marched off, across the lawn and towards the Crowley Building. After a little while, I swapped sides. Carmilla's lifeless head with its lank trail of hair – I just, I couldn't. 

You didn't quite manage to keep up with me on the stairs, but you sent me on. “I'll be fine. You go ahead – prepare Laura, right?” Hardly an easy bit, I reflected as I took the stairs two at a time.

Laura was in her room when I let myself in, doing a video update. I could see tears in her eyes as she turned round from the web cam.

“Hey, Laura. Um... so something happened. And, um. I wanted to come prepare you so that you wouldn't freak out.” I took a breath. “So Kirsch and some of his Zeta... bros were, uh, throwing cherry bombs into the big pit under the Lustig. And, um, they found-”

“Sorry Easy Bit, she's heavier than she looks.” You staggered in under the weight.

“Carm?” Laura was already on her feet and crowding the bed by the time you laid Carmilla down.

“Okay, so we think she's.. I mean, she seems dead, but she's a vampire right?”

“Well, blood! She needs blood!” Laura dashed for the fridge and grabbed the soy milk container. “Please don't be dead, please don't be dead,” she pleaded. I shot a glance at you.

Gently, subtly, Carmilla's eyelids began to flutter. Then the first breath came, halting. Her limbs hardly moved, but I could see how they lay now like someone sleeping and not with the heavy limpness they had on the grass outside. She sat up, slowly, dazedly. 

“Whoa, that was a kick.”

Laura almost knocked her over. Out of the corner of my eye I could see you blink several times, rapidly, and then your head began to droop as the realisation sank in. The expression on your face as you stared at Laura with her arms around Carmilla – Danny, I'm sorry you had to be so hurt like that.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

The look shared between them was clear enough. So I shuffled you, half-unwilling, out of the room and left Carmilla and Laura to their reunion.

* * *

After all that you chose not to go to the gym and I didn't like to leave you. We went back to your room and sat silently drinking tea. I could feel the loose hope that had sustained you draining away.

“You know what, this is stupid,” you said. “I'm sorry, Perry, I'm being such an idiot. This girl I liked but never went out with has got her broody love interest back – a love interest who saved all of us and who therefore very much deserves her – and I'm moping like I've been through an actual, genuine breakup. God, I'm pathetic.” 

“You're not pathetic. It's understandable. And just because you and Laura were never 'official' or whatever doesn't mean you can't be sad. You had hopes – that's fine.”

You didn't seem convinced. “Is it too early to start on the gin?”

“Yes.” I pursed my lips. “You know what'll help? Baking cookies!”

“Seriously?” There was a complete lack of being impressed on your face. “Do I look like a Betty Crocker girl?”

“Now Danny, I can't help you if you don't play along. There's a decent kitchen downstairs, right?” You nodded. “Well then. We'll make cookies. No buts – come on!” So I took your tea away from you and dragged you out of your bedroom and down the stairs.

Nobody can be sad when baking. It doesn't work. Anger won't last either, you just take it out on the dough.  
You put up a good series of complaints through the brownies, but I noticed that there was no muttering going on when we moved on to muffins. By the time we were rounding off the cookies, there was a smile back on your face and your eyes sparkled whenever you stole a chocolate chip and thought I didn't notice.

“Perry. Thank you,” you said as we sat slumped on your beanbag again. We were just as we had been, drinking tea – only now there was gentle calm your face and plates of baked goods on your desk.

I shrugged. “You looked like you needed cheering up and I only really know one way.”

“It was good of you.” You looked down, then darted your eyes up suddenly. “You're a good person.” I waved you off, but suddenly you seized my wrist. “I mean it. This last couple of weeks – you've been there and let me sulk and been- well, been all Perry.”

“All I've done is sat there and share problems,” I said, flushing slightly. “It's nothing.”

“It's not nothing. You've helped me. You really have.” 

Embarrassing. Helped you? Danny, my best friend was practically hiding from me, and I'd found myself sucked into the supernatural world I'd been trying to avoid for years – and then in the middle of this you found time to sit with me. And I'd found myself telling you about the whys and the wherefores like nobody else and you'd _listened_. 

I was acutely conscious of your long fingers wrapped around my wrist. In the moments we sat there, your touch did not release. Slowly, your fingers flowed from my wrist to my own hand. The heat from them seemed to burn down into my bones and not knowing at all what I was doing, I reached out and took hold of a lock of your hair. I could see each distinct red line sharply contrasting with the white of my palm. You drew in a deep breath and relinquished your touch only to run your hand against the base of my neck. Then hesitating, eyes darting, each pausing to wait for the other, we kissed.

When we drew apart I scrambled around for words. “Danny-”

“No,” you said, and pressed a finger to my lips. “Don't say anything. If you say something we'll have to explain ourselves, and then it will all fall apart.”

I waited, heart hammering.

“Look... we can stop, or we can go on. Whichever you like, Just let it be what it is, whatever it is. No explanations. No trying to sort it all out and make it make sense. I've had enough of that.”

As for explanations, I needed only one and I almost couldn't say it. “...me?”

Your answer came in a whisper between the next kiss and the one after. “You.”

I remember that night perfectly. Every detail stands out clear and bright. Your strong arms, and the feeling of muscles moving beneath your skin as I kissed my way down your body. Everywhere the interplay of softness and strength in you. Everywhere the person I had never imagined wanting suddenly being everything I wanted.

Afterwards, when the unthinkable had happened and I lay naked in your arms, flushed and tired, we wound ourselves around each other and talked in the night.

“I'm kind of looking forward to getting out of Silas,” I said, then added quickly, “not to get away from you though!”

“We could escape, you know,” you mused. “Nobody would stop us. We could pack our bags, right now, and go somewhere.”

“Without an itinerary?”

“Oh, live a little.” You gave me a gentle head-but. “Modern technology. Last-minute flights. Like – when do you get up in the morning?”

“Six o'clock, usually.”

“Bloody hell Perry, I run five miles before breakfast and I still don't get up till seven. You're not doing that tomorrow, you hear me? I need my beauty sleep.” I made some comment about it clearly having its effect and got my nose swatted. “What was I saying? So, six o'clock. Two hours for a taxi to the airport. One hour onto the flight. Two hours – Barcelona? And then two more till we're in our hotel. You could have a nap before you bound out of bed tomorrow morning.”

“You're not serious.”

“Well, I'm a broke student who has papers to mark tomorrow – so, no. But we could. Think what we could do there. The future's open.”

I smiled at that, although your phrase was almost the opposite of what I was feeling. My world had shrunk down to the dimensions of your bed and its contours were no more than the angles of your body that framed mine. All the worries about elsewhere, all the fretting about tomorrow and yesterday – all gone.

* * *

I woke up to the sun streaming through the blinds and the gentle tinkling of your wind chimes. You were half thrown over me and I could feel your breath tickling my ear. I felt perfect stillness.

I lay there, not opening my eyes. To open them would be to disturb the moment, and I wanted it to last as long as it could. I wanted it to last forever. We could just lie there in the sun and nothing would ever happen to us. I felt warm happiness welling up from my depths and it came to me that there should be flowers for us. With my eyes closed I could pretend that there were, that instead of being in a slightly too narrow bed at Silas we were stretched out in a garden in the shining sunlight. Roses were opening around us, lilac bending over us, convolvulus trailers twining around our interlocking limbs. Were I to shift myself up just a little further I would feel against my cheek the red buds that wove a crown across your forehead.

You were awake, apparently, because I felt your hand move to tangle in my hair. Your long fingers uncoiled and recoiled the locks. What had I done to evoke such tenderness in you?

We felt the groaning of the earth before we heard it. Louder than it had been – or maybe it just seemed louder in contrast to the silence before. The room shook, and there was a panic of birdsong from outside.

“Do you think the aftershocks are getting worse?” I asked. You stirred, knowing now that I was awake.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I wondered if they might stop now that Carmilla’s back.”

I rolled onto my side and you snuggled closer so that we were pressed against one another – your legs overlapping mine for quite some distance. The way your hair became almost translucent in the shaft of light from the window was mesmerising. And your fine cheekbones that I pressed my palm against as you closed your eyes.

There was a beep from my phone, LaFontaine’s particular tone. I ignored it, but then it came again and again. Grumbling, apologizing to you, I tilted myself half out of bed to rummage around in my bag. 

_Come quick. Something unexpected._

I debated. “I suppose I should go see what she wants.”

“Will you come back?” Your voice was small, quiet. I thought I had been the vulnerable one.

“Of course. Stay right there, Danny.”

Cursing my luck, I dressed and went to see what LaFontaine had discovered. I arrived in their room to find it empty, but urgent news was the province of Room 307 that semester. I found them there pacing up and down, helping Laura and Carmilla throw things into bags. There was worry, almost panic on their face.

“Perr!” They threw themselves at me. “God, where have you been?”

“Uh… I was watching a film at Danny’s last night. We fell asleep.” I avoided their face, hoped that my dishevelment would suggest sleeping on the floor.

“Since when did- whatever. No time. We need to go, right now.” They started furiously tightening the laces on their hiking boots.

“What? Why?”

“It’s not dead. The light, the hungry light.”

I cast around in confusion. “But we killed it. Carmilla killed it.” I turned to her in appeal. “You stuck a sword in it!”

“I stuck a sword in it that kills anyone who kills with it. And I’m not dead.” She sighed. “Turns out the light wasn’t Lophiformes. The light was the shiny lure being dangled by Lophiformes. And apparently it's waking up, so. Fleeing time.”

“You two all ready?” LaF asked, and Laura nodded. “Perr, I grabbed a load of your stuff from our room.” The campus was shaken by another rumbling, and I heard shouts coming from outside. “Right, let’s go.”

“Danny-” I began. I wheeled around to Laura, willing her to understand. “We need to warn people. Danny! Kirsch. Well everyone really, but we can’t leave them.” 

“Perr. We’ve put up an alert on the Silas Ethernet. We can’t stay here until everyone else is gone.”

The rumbling came again, more violently than ever before. Some of the shouting from outside was becoming screaming. Laura grabbed hold of Carmilla’s hand. 

I started shaking my head. How could I leave you? You were waiting for me in your bed. In our bed.

“Look, the path up into the Urwald goes past the Summer Society house. We’ll… stick our heads in on the way, but we can’t go looking for people who aren’t there.” LaFontaine squeezed my shoulder, then handed me one of my own rucksacks, stuffed full.

I thought you’d be there, waiting for me like you said you would. But when I pushed into your room you’d already gone. There was only the bed we had shared, and the remains of yesterday's baking on your desk.

* * *

I never told the others about us. Even when we were huddled in the freezing forest, asking each other whether we thought those on campus would be safe, I never mentioned what had passed between us. In truth I'm not sure I even knew myself what had happened, not really. It had been mutual comfort, and sympathy, and gratitude for comfort and sympathy received. And I think it was surprise too, joyful surprise that there could be someone to respond to our most desperate hopes.

In my head I had conversations with you, trying to decide who we were to each other now.

Danny – oh we two fools, hey? No, think nothing of it. Oh, don't make me blush. You weren't so bad yourself, actually.

Danny, I think – if we give this some time – we might have something here. Maybe sometime if you're free we could go get coffee?

Danny, I love you. I love you so much. I want to run my hands through your perfect hair every day. I want to lay my cheek on your chest and hear you heart beat. I want to travel to new places just so I can remember kissing you there.

All those conversations, and then when we did meet again I couldn't think of a single thing to say other than “You’re all right.” I’d imagined all sorts of reunions during those weeks in the Alps. I’d seen us reuniting in tears and embraces, surrounded by unseasonal flowers. I’d seen you striding proudly over the mountains with a bow and quiver to join us. I’d seen you dead, laid out on a bower as I came too late.

I pretended to myself that I’d expected awkwardness too, because that made it less painful.

“Perry,” you smiled. You looked so weary.

How could I pick up where we left off? Such a last meeting as we had surely demanded a proper parting and a proper reuniting. But we hadn’t said goodbye properly, I had only gone out for a bit leaving everything unresolved and now I didn’t know where we stood.

“Danny, I-” the words caught in my throat before I could say them and then you stepped forward and put your arms around me as I dissolved into tears.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come back. Danny, I tried but there were-” You pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“I know. I know. I tried too.” I looked up into your face and saw your own tears. “I tried to get across campus to you and - and to Laura, but there were landslides and sirens and collapsed buildings and it was a whole day before things settled down and you were already gone. God, I thought you might be dead. And then the fighting began.”

The war. I’d left you in a war.

“Hey. Hey, Perry. It wasn’t your fault. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

“But we didn’t come get you and then you were here all through the winter and there’s been fighting-”

“Not too much.” You took hold of my shaking hands and pressed them together. “It’s mostly been posturing and some skirmishing. Until the newspaper kids.”

I choked, and I saw the flicker pass across your face.

“I’m sorry you had to see them.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

The newspaper kids. The dripping had got into my head. The slow, steady dripping that rhymed with my own heartbeat. In my dreams I saw the blood spreading over my hands. I woke in the middle of the night and had to go to the bathroom to check in the mirror that I hadn't missed a spot. In quiet moments I started at the memory of their screams.

Except those couldn't be actual memories, because they were dead when I found them. But I imagined them as memories and that was hard enough.

You cupped my chin in your long fingers. Still so gentle, even in the middle of the hard winter. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “No, I’m fine. I just want to forget about it. To be as normal as possible. Or at least to pretend to be.” You made a face, but nodded and made no objection. I loved you for that. 

So we sat down on the bed and you tried to make things normal for me. You told me about the Christmas you had, how the Summers and Zetas had declared a truce and played games – one of football and one of netball, diplomatically making sure that the Zetas won the football and the Summers the netball. I told you about the Christmas witch and the gingerbread that was oddly addictive and yet still didn’t match up to my mother’s Hanukkah cookies.

I felt your warm body against me and things eased. I hadn't realised before then just how tense I'd been. I'd almost got used to the tickling headache at the nape of my neck, but under your hand it faded away. I was just plotting the freckles on your face and wondering if – or when – I should kiss you when you stood up and dropped your gaze to the floorboards between us. “Guess I should head back. The sisters will worry.”

There were all these words caught in my throat. I wanted to ask you to stay with us in the house, to stay with me in the house. And I knew you knew what I was thinking. But you wouldn’t, not with the Summers to protect. So I didn’t ask and you didn’t have to refuse me.

“Have a good evening, Danny.”

“You too. See you soon, Perry.” You leaned down to kiss me on the cheek and left.

I watched you leave from my window, jogging across the campus in the chilling evening. There was an odd feeling in my head, like I was a bit dizzy. It came to me then that this was the same feeling I’d had when I went out to try and find the newspaper staff, before I found them. The feeling of my life spiralling away.

* * *

I was sitting on my bed trying to collect my thoughts and stop them scattering like dropped marbles. It had been so difficult to concentrate lately. I’d had a flash of clarity earlier in the day – I’d found the files that Ms. Belmonde was keeping on the other board members, and a copy of her contract with Corvae – but after that was done the dullness came right back. Like I was being woken up just to do it and once it was complete I could be returned to sleep. Or put back in my box like Raggedy Anne.

The buzzing in my ears was back. So odd – on the one hand I was too drowsy to think, but on the other hand there were these insistent thoughts that wouldn't leave me alone. Like there was someone else doing the thinking and I was passively listening in.

I was so tired. I needed to sleep. Inevitable. Like descending a staircase. To the gates beneath. And footsteps, following the footsteps all the way down, following the footsteps of the dead, following the dead man and his footsteps to the gate, the footsteps of the dead down to gates, the first gate with footsteps down to the-

“Shut up!” I shouted out loud. In the quiet that followed, I heard the door creak open and saw a pale light framing a shadow on the floorboards before me.

“Are you all right?” You stood in the doorway. “I was putting the files back and I heard-”

“I’m- I’m-” I took a couple of deep breaths, but everything that had just happened in my head seemed to disappear and recede into the background. “You know when you wake up and try to think about your dreams? But they just evaporate before you can?” You nodded. “I seem to be feeling like that all the time. Like I can’t concentrate on anything. It’s all happening around me and I’m not in control of anything.”

You sat down next to me and took hold of my hand. “I don’t think any of us are in control at the moment.”

“Then who is?” I burst out.

“Nobody. Nobody. That’s the way it is.”

“That Mattie seems pretty well in charge,” I muttered. Matska Belmonde swanning around wither her arrogance and her sneering and her contempt. She made my fingers itch.

“Well she won’t be for much longer. Thanks to you the Baron will win the debate, and we’ll fix the school and everything will go back to normal. Normal for Silas,” you added honestly.

“I hope so.”

“How are you doing, anyway? I know we haven’t seen each other much since you got back, what with all the civil war and all.”

No, we hadn't seen each other much. You hadn't been around much, what with the war. Only once Laura and Carmilla broke up you were suddenly round all the time. Comforting her, filling in the newly-vacated role of heroine. It stung a bit.

“Oh, I’m just dandy. I still have nightmares about the newspaper kids, and someone broke into my room and cut me up, and then I got mobbed by a flock of crows and I just want it to _stop_.” I could feel the tears starting again, if they'd ever been gone. “I can’t keep going like this, I’m not brave and strong like you-”

“Hey, you think I don’t want it to stop too? I wish it would. But we’re not there yet.” You paused, weighing up something in your mind. “You know – I could stay. Here. I could stay here if it would help you. If you wanted.”

I looked into your grey eyes. “I’d like that.” Then I had to say something else, too. “If it actually is me you want to stay with and not Laura.”

You were still for a bit when I said that and I was afraid you were going to accept my implication. But – and Danny, what did I do to deserve you? – you took my face between your hand and kissed me. All at once I was thrown back to that other night, when nothing in the world made sense but we stayed in it together.

“Of course it is. Perry, I know what with all the stuff that’s been happening recently we haven’t exactly talked. About what happened last semester. And I don’t even know what I’d say if we did – except that it really did mean something to me.”

“Me too,” I put in. I slid in to your shoulder and rested there.

“And this probably isn’t the right time to be making plans or working everything out, but – well I hope we can. When things have settled down, we should talk. See how we feel.”

“Yes. Yes, I’d like that.” When things have settled down. When there’s a future stretching out ahead and not just the endless struggle against chaos.

“But in the meantime, if you’d let me stay I’d like to stay with you.”

So you did. I was about to say that you gave me something special, but it was what you took away that made you special to me. You took away the fear, and the anxiety and everything that twisted me up. Most of all you took away the insistent buzzing in my ears. When I remember you, moving slowly up my body to kiss me as you returned from shaking your name out of my lips, I can recall every detail of the subtle contours of your face. And so wide, my vision that saw everything without clouding or obstruction. 

But that was the last night of peace.

* * *

“You’re going to go, aren’t you?” I asked, late last night. We sat on the floor of a corner the kitchen, our backs to right-angled cabinets and our knees hugged to our chests. 

You nodded. “Don’t see what else I can do. We can’t survive the siege forever, and those students down there in the catacombs are our only hope. And we’re theirs.” There was a small cut across the bridge of your nose, and you touched it absent-mindedly.

“I just- I have a bad feeling.” My fingers found yours on the tiled floor between us and they twined together.

“You and me both, Perry. It’s pretty much all bad feelings right now. But everything’s a risk - it’d be just as dangerous not going.”

“No, I mean-” I waved my free hand, trying to understand the tickling at the back of my mind. “I mean, I have this feeling that there’s something else going on. That we don’t know about.”

“What do you mean?”

“It just feels like somebody’s been ahead of us this whole time. Every time we do something it rebounds totally.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds familiar. I was wondering if it was a symptom of adult life.”

Despite myself, a giggle came out. “Oh, don’t joke about that. I was still hoping for a quiet life somewhere pleasant.”

Outside the kitchen I could hear the gentle back-and-forward of the others pacing around, but the buzzing in my ears was back. It had been very strong earlier – or actually, had it? I couldn't quite be sure that I remembered much of the siege so far. But perhaps that was to be expected, it was very confusing and things do get tangled up when you're confused?

I burst out suddenly, “Danny, I’m forgetting things. There are whole hours, sometimes more, when I can’t remember what I was doing. And sometimes I do remember bits, and it doesn’t feel like me, it feels like a bad dream.” You opened your mouth, but I carried on. “And there’s this buzzing in my ears, and my sight, it- it _ripples_ , do you know what I mean? Why does it do that?”

I took a breath, hearing the internal screams to _not tell her_. “I think there’s something wrong with me. Very badly wrong.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a case of PTS-”

I shook my head violently. “LaFontaine says that. They’re wrong. I don’t know how I know that, but they’re wrong.”

“Perry.” You took hold of my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’ve been through an awful time. You’d have to be inhuman not to be affected. But it’ll be all right in the end.”

“How? Tell me how it can be all right.” It came out hollow. I sounded even to myself like a frightened child.

“We’ll beat the Baron. Tomorrow. And then we’ll clear the campus up. Neat and tidy, just the way you like it, yes?” I hung onto your words, not caring if they could be real. “And then we’ll go somewhere on holiday, just me and you, and you'll get better. Where would you like to go?”

I picked somewhere at random. “Sicily?”

“Sicily. And we’ll get a hotel together and be atrociously lazy on the beach all day and take gentle walks in the hills. And then in the evening we’ll get tipsy on ludicrously expensive cocktails and weave back to our room.”

“Our room?” 

A smile twitched at the corner of your mouth. “Our room.”

I shook my head. “Danny, I’d love that. I really would. But you don’t mean it.” I looked right at you. “Me and you? I wish, I really wish. But let’s admit it, it’d be Laura every time for you. I was there when she couldn’t be-” I choked, and you were instantly there with your arms round me.

“-but if we survive she’ll need you too, so don’t make me hope that the two of us-” You cut me off with a kiss and kept your palm pressed against my cheek as you spoke.

“Perry. Listen to me. I care about you. And yeah, I care about Laura too. A lot. But that doesn’t mean you’re nothing. It doesn’t mean you’re second.” You took a breath. “You heard me tell her it was worth it for the right person? Well, turns out I’m a shitty English major, because I should have made that plural.

“And I’m not scared because whatever happens, it’s worth it for the right people.”

“Really?”

“Really. But if it’ll sound more believable we can _all_ go to Sicily and the two of you can take turns being outrageously cute until I explode.” For a moment while we laughed I could believe you. 

“Time to go, guys.” LaFontaine stuck their head around the door. They didn't comment on how close we were to being in each other's arms, and I wondered if I truly had any secrets from them. You rose slowly and smoothly and held out your arm to help me up.

“Okay, I’m ready. On your feet, Perry.”

* * *

And now you're out there with your army and there's a buzzing in my ears. It's getting worse. There is a roaring blackness around the edge of my vision and I can't shake it. It's like there's something in the back of my head and it's spreading over me. When the black patches come there's something _inside_ them – I feel like I get closer to remembering things.

LaFontaine, JP and I are standing on the porch of my house-

-of the _Dean's_ house looking across the front lawn. I should scream. I should shout out and let them – let anyone – help me, but I can't. The words don't come. It's like stage fright, or that horrified blankness at the start of an exam. 

You're so beautiful out there leading your army and I just think that if I keep looking at you I'll be able to stop the last part of my world fading.

“We should go get Laura,” says LaF. “She'd want to see this.”

“It is reasonably epic,” agrees JP.

None of us move. The sun is rising slowly over the Robespierre building and in the morning brightness the motley array of hockey sticks and rounders bats shine like swords. They could have carried a banner behind you and it would have fitted. You could have let your hair free in the wind save for a fillet of gold - but for me the effect is complete with you just as you are.

My hands are shaking. It's not cold and it's not nerves. It's like an electric shock moving up my arm, like the shivers I got when you touched me for the first time in your room where the wind chimes played. You always made things make sense. If I'd just explained to you more, told you everything, you'd have said something to help. What is it I should have told you?

          There's something on the tip of my mind, something I remember.

Your hands uncoiling the strands of my hair in the morning-

          Something I know but don't quite know.

You said my name, and I told you-

          I want to run forward to join you but I can't move my legs.

You touched my lips with your finger and-

          It's all going black and I'm not moving my arm but it _is_ moving.

Please just let us go and-

          It's all dark but for you, that one bright halo and if I could reach you I would know, I would remember what it is that I needed to say, what is is that I don't quite know-

Red lines across my palm-

“Danny! I-”

.  
.  
.

_Sorry, dear. She doesn't want to talk to you right now._


End file.
